New Class…

I’m starting my second class toward YM certification. The first class was incredibly frustrating. I wrestled with whether or not to continue in the program but decided to take the second class this semester, hoping it would be better than the first.

Just finished the first assignment and if the first book is any indication of what the class will be like, I absolutely made the right decision. The book was phenomenal. So good, in fact, that I wanted to share a few thoughts with you.

These are random quotes that stood out to me from the book: Shaping the Ministry of Christian Education in Your Congregation.

We realize that, while we can create the settings and provide and support teachers for those settings, the transformation of persons is beyond our doing. God is the weaver of the tapestry. It is God who, through grace, works the miracle of transformation. We are servants of the one who does the weaving.

Christian education settings should be inviting places, and when we teach we should teach invitationally, expecting that lives will be transformed.

Teachers are called to create the space where persons can hear God’s promises and claim them as their own, space where they can wrestle with what it means to live those promises in their daily lives. Those who teach are to claim and live the promises of God in their own lives, then share the promises through their teaching and their living.

We are co-workers with God who invites us to claim the world as God’s own, the place where God is at work. We join in God’s transforming work and we witness to God’s grace in our own lives knowing that we are dependent upon God’s power and guidance. It is God’s work we do, not our own.

We are called to become personally and corporately involved in the lives of others, knowing that our involvement will require sacrifice. We cannot proclaim God’s action in Christ and sit by while some perish in physical or spiritual poverty. We cannot have God in our hearts without letting God use our hands to do His work in the world.

We are a gathering of strangers who have come together because we have heard God call our name and we want to follow Christ. God does not call us as isolated individuals to a way of believing; God calls us into community, to a way of life together.

The book is available on Amazon. It’s a quick read and well worth the time!